Drifting
by ForbiddenTreasures
Summary: There is always one person or moment that helps define the choices we make in the future. ONe thing that despite our desires stays with us forever.


Drifting

_I hereby stare that I have no claim to Harry Potter or any other Harry Potter related thingamabobs, but I **do** claim the jar of peanut butter in my pantry._

**A/N:** Dedicated to, Luna Obsessed, who asked me to write a fic with this ship. HBP SPOILERS!

It was just something about her very _presence_ that disturbed most people.

Her awful simplicity.

It was just that. She would laugh when people cried, frown when people smiled, stand when people sat, and accepted when people scorned.

She was so separate and different from people it would be an insult to call her a person. For all people have their pathetic qualities. Hers were never pathetic. Odd, bizarre, and slightly insane, but never pathetic. No, Luna Lovegood, was an entirely different thing altogether.

She was the very first person who'd accepted him when he'd changed. When he realised what a pompous git he was being and how all the idiocies he was committing would take him absolutely nowhere. She simply reached out her hand and welcomed him like an owner beckoning a stray dog into their happy life and home. Offering protection and love that the stray dog had never felt and most likely didn't deserve. It was odd how readily she offered her acceptance and protection, as if he had never done anything wrong and that's where he had always belonged.

He'd done everything wrong and somehow doubted he'd _ever_ be able to belong.

He'd wronged so many people – her in particular. It was if she never cared or found it of minimal importance. She always let him in. Time and time again.

But the one moment he recalled most was the day when he finally _noticed_ her.

The first time he glimpsed into the oddity of Luna Lovegood, the impenetrable quirks and absolved happiness.

It'd been midnight and he'd been on patrols. Sixth year. The year when things all seemed to reach an all-time low. Not one part of his life even came close to the ideals he'd had for himself when he was younger. Nothing was like he'd expected it to be. It was a thousand times worse.

His father was a death-eater and now he was being forced to follow suit. Follow the path of murder, death, and undying devotion to a man who deserved very little. The impending thoughts of the murder he was obligated to commit weighed heavy in his mind and was filled with nothing but disgust. He was plagued with certain…thoughts everyday. Thoughts that were unsettling and went across everything he, a _Malfoy_, was obligated to believe. He didn't want to do it. Any of it. It was that very thing that was making him sick, making his stomach twist, turn and bubble.

He was being forced to do something he did not want.

Because there really was no choice. His father he could care less for, but if his mother were to be hurt because he decided to back out, he would not be able to live with it. Choices, they were nonexistent in today's culture.

It was because of these maddening thoughts that he'd extended his patrol longer than usual. Merely hoping to find someone to place his anger on. That's when he saw her. A child-like angel sitting outside with her legs sprawled open, arms resting in between her legs and propping her head with her arms. She was contentedly staring at the sky apparently oblivious to the fact that there were no stars, the cold harsh wind whipping around, and the soft dewy wetness of the green blades of grass brushing her body softly.

Something about her posture gave off an elegant aura and yet it was completely undignified. She seemed blissfully unaware or perhaps not caring about anything around her. She merely appeared lost within herself.

She seemed so lost in some other place, world or time that he wondered fleetingly if it was worth puling her from it, just so he could obliterate his anger. Her wide blue eyes gave him the impression of an open-minded person with a twisted sort of humour. As if she often saw further than most people were willing and knew better than she was expected to know. In the end he didn't care whether pulling her from her world was worth it or not, he needed to let out his disgust and scorn.

Misplaced aggression can be quite a beauty.

"What," he sneered "are you doing?"

She sighed and flicked her eyes to him. The blue orbs regarded him as if he were a mere fly then turned back to the cloudy night sky. "Thinking."

"It's after hours, Lovegood." He drawled bitterly, angered that she could not force herself to even act worried that she'd been caught.

"So, take ten points." She said lazily "Or twenty, I don't care."

"You don't care?" he asked his voice full of contempt.

"No, points are stupid and pathetic."

"And if I were you give you detention…?" He asked his brittle hostility quickly dissolving into honest curiosity. _How could she not care?_

"I'd say it's not particularly fair, but you're free to give it."

"Lovegood, go to your room." He sighed growing tired of the conversation. Somehow he could no longer force himself to insult her or let out his anger as he usually did, he just felt tired and worn out. Like an old man. When she didn't move, Draco leaned down so he was more or less at her level. He wasn't about to rest his head that low. "Lovegood, did you hear me?" she didn't move "Lovego—"

"Do you see that?" She asked sitting up and pointing at the sky. His face was now officially level with hers.

"See what?" he muttered staring at they sky. All he could see were grey languid clouds.

"There." She said impatiently

"Lovegood, there's nothing there."

She groaned and pushed his face higher up so all he could see was the sky. The touch of her fingertips on his chin sent a slight shock of nerves through him. It was odd. Her fingers felt soft and gentle but held his face with a determined firmness. "Look at the clouds." She whispered with a tone of awe in her voice "See how they move lazily and slowly toward nothing? Just moving wherever the wind takes them. See that tiny silver one? It's moving the other way. Against the wind, against the force. It's moving where it wants to go. It's wiling to go where it wants despite the fact that no one follows it." She then smiled. A soft, wide, goofy grin, displaying some sort of hidden secret he had yet to understand. "It's using all the energy it has to fight the preconceptions. Even though the preconceptions are huge and it is small."

He sighed, failing to understand what was so innately amazing about the movement of clouds. "It's just a cloud, Lovegood."

She let go of his chin and Draco found this action upset him. He liked the feel of her fingers. Caring. She shook her head sadly like she'd treated him to paradise and he was blind to all its wonders. He felt as if he'd missed out on something. "Sometimes, we do things, because others have done it and we are expected to do it as well. We don't do it from desire or – or _need_, we do it because we're afraid to break from the steady melodic pattern." She explained softly

Her eyes were sparkling with warmth and a sort of guiding pressure for him to understand, but he did not. The only thing he understood was that the little bird was confused. Clouds were one thing and while it must be infinitely hard for one cloud to float the other way, it must in the end always realise that it was never going to work so it would either break down or return to the old pattern. As for people? It was the same way.

But he understood where she was coming from; dreams were a lovely thing to have. Too bad they were always stolen and crushed.

"It's not fear. It's that doing so is a futile task."

"Futile? Not really, just improbable." She said nothing more, but the look and posture she'd held before vanished. She seemed lost.

"Impossible. Have you ever been against the wind?"

"All the time." She muttered softly "all the time."

"Then you should know by now that it doesn't work."

She sighed, her blue eyes distant "It's worth it. I prefer to try than to give up."

He would later blame the following events on the fatigue from the extreme lateness of the night. But that would never be true. It was his interest that compelled him to do what he did. His faint wonder in her philosophical words and honesty. Very slowly and deliberately he grasped her chin firmly and pulled her face to his. He placed a single kiss on the corner of her gentle, slightly chapped lips. Then in a dazed stupor he pressed them fully onto her lips.

The Ravenclaw's response was to gasp and he could almost see her blue, doe-eyes widen incredibly. He pressed the kiss further using the gasp as an invitation to her mouth. She tasted strongly of lemon and sugar. An odd combination, but intoxicating nonetheless. His hand moved to the back of her neck and tangled his fingers into the mass of blonde hair. The little bird then recovered from her shock and to his surprise, responded. She kissed him back with passion and expertise so fierce it was surprising. Almost as if she'd done this so many times before. He didn't stop to think. The last thing he could do was _think_. The only thing he knew was that something about the girl was driving him mad. Something about this one kiss.

The bird then pulled away abruptly, her eyes displaying confusion, horror, desire and astonishment at the same time. She raised her hand tentatively to her lips then blushed. A deep wine-rose building in her cheeks that seemed to alight her lovely eyes even more so. She stayed like that for awhile staring at nothing with a mixture of emotions rushing through her eyes. While he was simply trying to find his mind which seemed to have run off from the moment his lips touched hers.

"I think…" she muttered, the blush gone and her eyes void of any trace that something had happened. They were blank and dumbly unaware. The way he usually saw her eyes look during school. "I'll go to my room. It's late…" she mumbled it as if she was talking to herself.

Which was probably accurate for all he could concentrate on was the flutter of her eyelids, the way the corner of her lips twitched as if she was trying to hold back a smile, and the lovely sound her voice made.

She stood up and headed for the castle, but turned facing him, evident curiosity written across her face. "Why did you do that?"

"That?" he repeated his face carefully arranged into a supercilious smirk "You were talking too much."

"Oh." She paused as if considering an option. She then set her huge eyes on him, studying him like she was trying to decide if he was suitable for something. He was about to say something crude when in a soft tentative treble she said "Are you fighting against the wind or letting it take you?"

He cocked his head about to mutter something bitter and rude when he pondered the magnificence of the question. She wasn't judging him. She was really, truly asking him what he wanted to be. She held no scorn, pride, or disgust, mere interest in what he was. He rolled the question over in his mind savouring it. "I'm not sure." He replied honestly. Which was a magnificent triumph for him as he never was honest, even when he had nothing to lose.

She nodded "I understand." She then left; disappeared quite simply into the vibrant walls of the school. She didn't seek him out and he didn't seek her out. He watched her sometimes and was surprised that when she met his gaze and offered him a simple small smile that he felt was meant just for him. She left him slightly confused and much more disturbed than he'd been starting out, but after three days he quickly dismissed the incident and returned to the matter at hand.

Killing Dumbledore.

But her words forever lay engraved in his mind even at the moment when the headmaster said he was a good boy. Dumbledore's words meant nothing to him, they passed through his heart and mind like air but it awakened _her_ words and it was hers that stopped him from muttering the curse.

"_Are you fighting against the wind or letting it take you?"_


End file.
